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• Den of Hearts
• Maggots and Men
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Maggots and Men Premiere

The official premiere for Maggots and Men will be this Sunday June 21st at the beautiful Castro Theater in San Francisco. I wrote the musical score for piano, harp, bass, oboe, and percussion.

You can purchase tickets and get further information through the Frameline Film Festival website.

This will probably be the only chance to see this epic film in such a huge theater so please come on out and see it!

Synopsis

Maggots and Men is an experimental historical narrative set in a mythologized, post-revolutionary Russia that re-imagines the story of the Kronstadt uprising with a subtext of gender anarchy. The film dramatizes the events of the 1921 rebellion and pays tribute to the Kronstadt sailors’ earnest pursuit of communist ideals. Agit-prop theater group Blue Blouse guides us through the story, which is narrated by fictionalized letters written by Stepan Petrichenko, the leader of the Provisional Revolutionary Committee.

About

Maggots and Men positions the struggle for gender equality within a larger struggle for peace and justice. Cast with female-to-male transgender actors, the film documents a rapidly evolving transgender community and illuminates the gender revolution currently taking place in our society.
Painting the brief success of communal society at Kronstadt as a fanciful utopia, Maggots and Men transports us to a realm where we can dream of alternatives to capitalist society.

History

The Kronstadt sailors had a long tradition as radicals and fierce warriors, which began with the failed revolution of 1905 (the subject of Battleship Potemkin). Maggots and Men recounts the tragic events of March 1921 that ensued when the Kronstadt sailors drafted a resolution that supported the factory workers on strike in St. Petersburg. In addition to echoing the starving workers’ demand for food, the resolution called for a re-election of the soviets and demanded greater autonomy from an increasingly authoritarian government. The Bolshevik government destroyed public support for the sailors by launching a propaganda campaign that falsely labeled them as counter-revolutionaries. Rather than de-escalating the situation Trotsky, Minister of War, ordered the sailors to be taken by force. After heavy losses on both sides the two-week long battle ended with victory for the Bolsheviks and death or exile for the sailors.

Donations Needed

For two weeks this past February, some of my favorite people and I transformed a small warehouse into a glowing swamp cave that dripped with lace and pudding. We installed stage lights and microphones everywhere and gathered two violins, two trumpets, a viola, a cello, a trombone, a sousaphone, a drum kit, and singers. In two days we shot the footage for my new film A Living Olympus.

I am in the process of mixing the audio and editing the video in my room. I am still over $10,000 in debt from this production, which I will pay off with my own work, some grant money, and private donations. Please take a moment to donate whatever you can spare to support this beautiful, completely independently produced project.